Once upon a time for old hotels, motels

Published: November 4, 2012 8:00 AM

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Before the interstate highways sounded the death knell for most of the motels along U.S. Route 40 and other smaller highways through the Cambridge area, it was boom time for that segment of the accommodations business.

The underpinnings of the area motel and hotel boom were obvious, noted Fortune magazine. Longer vacations, expanding suburbanization, the increasing decentralization of industry, and the sharp rise in automobile travel had all combined to create a demand for better wayside accommodations.

A sizable army of institutional and private investors -- many of the latter business and professional men banded together in investor syndicates -- began pushing money into the motel field in the early 1950s, according to Fortune.

Traditionally, the demand for transient lodging and services has come from four main kinds of travelers: Salesmen, touring families, executives on business trips, and convention-goers. All four groups were once dependent almost entirely on the railroads, which the older downtown hotels -- of which Cambridge had several -- were built to serve. Many of these travelers then switched their allegiance to automobiles, and the motel-building pedal was to the metal.

Most of that ran out of gas in the '60s, however, when the interstate highway system opened. The old motels were turned into apartment buildings, state-operated group homes, or simply fell into fatal disrepair. Some, however, did soldier on.

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Interestingly, there is today renewed activity in the accomodations industry in Cambridge, as evidenced by bustling motel development near the community's crossroads with the major highways.